“Offering affordable health care coverage is an effective way of improving the quality of long-term care services by improving the quality of direct-care jobs. I’m glad to see this strategy getting more recognition from researchers and policymakers,” says Carol Regan, Director of PHI’s Health Care for Health Care Workers campaign.

Regan wrote one of the papers in A Compendium of Three Discussion Papers: Strategies for Promoting and Improving the Direct Service Workforce: Applications to Home and Community-Based Services. All three offer concrete solutions and list resources for people interested in strengthening the direct-care workforce in home- and community-based care. The compendium was issued by the Rutgers Center for State Health Policy.

The papers include:

• Home and Community-Based Services: Workforce and Quality Outcomes, by Elise Scala;
• What is the Impact of Unions on Quality of Care? by Leslie Hendrickson; and 
• Health Coverage for Direct Care Workers, Emerging Strategies, Regan’s contribution.

Elise Nakhnikian, Senior Online Editor
enakhnikian@phinational.org